


A Family Affair

by PlayingChello



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, M/M, Self-Harm, a little dose of fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-09
Updated: 2015-10-09
Packaged: 2018-04-25 15:31:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4966393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlayingChello/pseuds/PlayingChello
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nero never thought he’d turn to drugs.</p>
<p>But something about the way the dealer sold it, told him it’d take him away and give him an experience he’s never had. And he happened to be weak in that moment, craving something to get away from the shit show of Fortuna. Craving to just not be for a while.</p>
<p>That first hit was absolute heaven.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Family Affair

**Author's Note:**

> Take note of the tags if you have triggers, otherwise, enjoy this rare dose of fluff from me!

Nero never thought he’d turn to drugs.

But something about the way the dealer sold it, told him it’d take him away and give him an experience he’s never had. And he happened to be weak in that moment, craving something to get away from the shit show of Fortuna. Craving to just not be for a while.

That first hit was absolute heaven.

Floating away from the world, barely aware of what was real and true. There weren’t demons or people that pretended they weren’t afraid. It was just him, floating on a cloud above everything. Alone and at peace.

It became a habit after that.

Just once in awhile. Just to feel good every now and then. Just to escape the constant fake bullshit of the people of Fortuna.

Some time in there, Dante brought him on for a few jobs. He liked those days. He actually felt like his unique skill set was worth something. And Dante was enjoyable to be around. Gave Nero a kind of rush. Sort of like when he was high, but a different kind of high. It was nice.

He eventually just stopped going back to Fortuna. No point. The people didn’t appreciate him and it made him crave the ketamine more. He made his presence more permanent at Devil May Cry and found his life considerably more pleasant in the presence of the demon hunters rather than in the religious zeal of the people of Fortuna. 

But that didn’t curb the cravings. He still had them. That’s what happens when you get a habit. You can’t put it down. He didn’t tell anyone about it. Just hid in his bedroom or in the bathroom with a needle and shot himself up. Still, he didn’t do it much. But it was starting to get worse. More frequent.

Nero didn’t realise the illnesses were because he hadn’t used in a while. He just dealt with it, and the next time a craving would come on, he’d shoot up again. He couldn’t seem to make the connection. But somewhere, subconsciously, he must have. Because his use got worse and his strength against cravings diminished to the point of nonexistence.

He gets reckless.

Started leaving evidence around the bar. Needles that aren’t covered in the trash, tourniquets lying out in the bathroom. Straight razors with dried blood from when he gets _really_ fucked up. It’s only a matter of time before someone finds them. Finds them and confronts him.

\--

“Hey, Nero?” A voice sounds from beyond his door along with a few heavy handed knocks. Clearly Dante. Nero’s busy floating on a high that’s just not _good_ enough. He’s getting close to the point where he searches out a blade, nearby, to help him on his way. So he’s not really in a position to answer the knock, much less get up and open the door. Not that he really wants to with the evidence of his activities strewn about the room haphazardly.

Still, the door opens and the man steps through tentatively. Nero’s never seen Dante tentative about anything. He’s a crash and burn kind of guy. Nero notes the way he enters, but he can’t seem to care. He feels like he _should_ care, like it should mean something. But he just can’t work up the energy to care.

“Oh, Nero…” Dante says. Again, Nero notes the anguish in his voice and the way he takes in the state of the bedroom, but he doesn’t do anything about it. The implications don’t make it through the cloud on his mind.

He feels a pressure on his arm… but also he doesn’t. It’s such a weird sensation, but after months of hurting himself during these times, he’s gotten used to it. It’s still disorienting, but he’s used to it.

“Nero. You need to stop this.”

Words floating into his mind and then out again. He thinks he smiles. Maybe. He isn’t sure.

“Jesus, kid. Trish was right.” Dante’s arm moves around Nero’s shoulders and lays him down. Nero doesn’t struggle. Hardly even registers that he’s been moved.

Shortly after this, sleep takes him.

\--

Nero probably thought he was being discreet. For a while, he sort of was. At first, Dante didn’t suspect anything. Nero was just as normal as always. Mouthy, angry, and cute as hell. Dante liked having him come out on jobs. He’s a capable fighter and always has something to say.

It was probably around the time he started spending more time at Devil May Cry that Dante started to notice something was… off about him. He couldn’t place it, but there would be times when the boy would disappear and come back not quite right. It worried him, but he also figured it wasn’t his place to say anything. Despite his favourite nickname for him, Nero isn’t a child.

But when he started to get careless, Dante had a harder time staying back. But still, it wasn’t his place. As long as Nero wasn’t killing himself, Dante would stay back. Not to mention his growing affection for the younger man. He didn’t want to push himself onto Nero. So, instead, he avoided him.

When Trish and Lady found the razors, though. That he couldn’t ignore. He couldn’t stand their worried looks and he couldn’t stand the thought of losing _another_ person in his life.

So that’s why he’s sitting on the edge of Nero’s bed, hand carding through sweat soaked hair as Nero sleeps off whatever the fuck is coursing through his veins. His eyes wander around the room. It’s a mess. There are clothes and paper and and towels strewn about. It looks worse than Dante’s own room. When he looks to the nightstand, his heart breaks a little. There are four razors laying on the surface and a paper towel with dried blood. The only comfort lies in the fact that there is no fresh blood. Nero clearly didn’t get to this point in his ritual this time.

After several minutes, Dante figures Nero will be a while in waking up, so he gets up and starts picking the room up. Starts with the nightstand and puts that shit directly into the trash. The rest of the room is easier, but Dante finds stashes all over. Little bottles of clear liquid, syringes, needles, more razors. They’re in random places. Dresser drawer, under a coat on the floor, in a hole in the closet. Dante only hopes he’s found them all by the time the room looks livable again.

Two hours later, Nero finally stirs.

“Mnn.” Dante feels like a lecherous old man when he finds the sleepy sound kind of adorable.

“Welcome back to the land of the living, kid.”

Nero’s eyes blink heavily. He looks like he’s still feeling whatever it was, still sluggish and unresponsive. After a moment’s hesitation, Dante reaches to his face and cups his cheek. He wants to tell him it’s going to be ok, that he’s here to help him. But nothing is going to make it through to Nero right now, he needs to wait until he’s coherent.

It takes several minutes for recognition to finally shine through Nero’s eyes. Long, agonising minutes where Dante almost fears that Nero won’t come back. That he’ll be stuck in this state of complacency forever. But he does come back, slowly.

“What… Dante?”

“There you are. How are you feeling?” Dante keeps his voice low and quiet, careful.

“I…” For just a moment, Nero leaned into Dante’s hand, and it makes Dante’s chest feel tight. “Better… Mmm.” His answer isn’t exactly intelligible. Still, though, Dante thinks it’s an affirmative. He pulls his hand away and brushes hair from Nero’s face before placing both hands in his lap and looking away.

“Nero… This needs to stop. You can’t keep doing this to yourself.”

For a second, a fraction of a second, Dante thinks Nero’s classic fire is going to make an entrance, with the way he hears Nero sit up. But then there’s a sigh and shuffling and when Dante looks back, Nero has rolled over so he’s facing the wall, away from Dante.

Dante sighs, “Nero. You have a home here. You always will. And Trish and Lady,” _and me, tell him_ , “They care about you. And no one wants to watch you do this to yourself.”

Nero makes a dismissive sound and Dante glances at his back again. He looks unusually small like this. Curled up in his bed looking very much a small child.

He doesn’t want to do this. Never wanted to, but definitely doesn’t want to right now.

“Let me tell you a little story, kiddo.”

So he does.

He stands up, walks over to the corner of the room where his brother’s sword rests against the wall. The sheath feels odd in his hands. It never belonged to him. It has always been his brother’s sword. And now Nero carries it. He pulls the blade from the sheath about six inches and returns to Nero’s bedside.

“So you know this sword belonged to my brother. Yamato. A gift from our father. It became an extension of him, my brother.

“His name was Vergil.

“We were really close when we were kids. Always sparring and causing trouble. Well,” Dante chuckles, “more like, I was always causing trouble and Vergil was constantly being blamed for it. Or trying to get me out of it. It was good, back then.

“And then the demons came. I’ll skip passed the details, but at the end of the day, we ended up orphans. We grew apart and Vergil got it in his head that, as an heir of Sparda, he deserved the power of Sparda. The power of demons.

“He recruited Lady’s father, that’s how we met actually, to raise Temen-ni-gru and connect the human and demon worlds. It was a big mess and a lot of bullshit happened, stuff you’d be better off getting from Lady. Point is. Vergil and I, we ended up having to work together to shut it all down. But Vergil was still determined. Drunk on the need for power. We fought.”

Deep breath, Dante drives Yamato back into its sheath. “He dropped into Hell, wouldn’t let me save him. Just fell away. Only saw him again as a puppet of Mundus’. But that’s another story for another time.

“Point is,” he says, reaching down to brush over Nero’s form again, “I cared a lot about Vergil, and I lost him because of his self destructive behaviour and his need for power. And,” sigh, “I care about you, Nero. A lot. And I can’t lose another person. And I know that sounds selfish, but I can’t do it again, Nero. I can’t.”

Dante stands there for a few moments, watching Nero breathe. But he’s silent, unresponsive. Finally, Dante sets Yamato back in the corner and leaves the room.

\--

Nero spends a lot time just laying there. Facing the wall and laying there. He knows Dante left ages ago, but he doesn’t know exactly how long it’s been.

While Dante had spoken, Nero hadn’t really listened. He was more focused on keeping the anger steady. It’s hard, coming down from a ketamine kick, to hold on to any one emotion. But he’s trying, trying to be mad at Dante for walking in and cutting his ritual short, for not letting him slice open his flesh and actually get something out of his high.

But about the time Dante finished and walked out, Nero started actually feeling something.

Sadness.

Every one of them that lives here has had an awful lot in life. They’ve all lost people and they all have things to be sad about. It’s part of the reason they stick so close to one another, Nero supposes. So he gets it, he gets that Dante can’t lose another person. That it would devastate him.

When he finally moves, just to roll to his other side at first, he realises he’s been crying. He wonders how long that’s been happening.

It takes a long time for him to look around the room. It’s cleaner now. Must have been Dante. A glance to the nightstand shows he’s out several razors. He’s sure if he looked harder that he’s out a lot more than that.

Finally, he drags himself out of bed. He’s hungry. That’s it. Needs a sandwich or something.

The kitchen is empty. The whole place seems empty, actually. But it’s the kitchen that Nero notices. Still, he ignores it and slaps together a sandwich with some potentially questionable lunchmeat.

About the time he polishes it off, he hears something from the main floor of the bar. He checks his hip for Blue Rose, only to remember it’s still laying somewhere in his room. Devil Bringer it is. He flexes his fingers and puts himself on alert.  
He goes silent and slowly makes his way to the main bar. He peeks around the wall.

And it’s just Dante.

He’s sitting on the couch staring down at something in his hands. Nero lowers his guard and relaxes. It looks like it’s a… picture frame. Nero’s only known Dante to have one picture, the one of his mother on his desk. But a glance over to the desk in question reveals that picture is still sitting where it belongs.

Nero feels like he’s interrupting something. But that doesn’t stop him from stepping into the room and clearing his throat.

Dante’s head snaps up. His eyes look shiny, but no tears are falling. Nero can see his hands tense on the frame, but only for a moment before he relaxes into his classic carefree attitude. “What’s up, kid? Finally got out of bed?”

Nero sneers, but then his face softens again. He’s known the older man long enough. This is a front. He’s hurting. “I’m sorry.”

Dante’s face morphs into one of concern, “What are you sorry for, kid? You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”

Nero takes a few more steps and can feel his eyes prickle with heat, “I’m sorry for worrying you. For being such a fuck up. For being someone you could lose. ...Again. I’m sorry.” Somewhere in there he felt the first tear fall, but it’s when he finishes that a sob breaks out from his throat.

“Hey now, shh, you don’t- Nero, hey. Come here, let me fix it.” He holds his arms out to the younger and Nero all but falls into him. He sobs and tries to speak. Tries to apologise more, tries to explain how he got here, why he does it. But Dante keeps shushing him, rubbing his back in soothing little circles, rocking him gently against him.

Nero lets everything out. He cries until he physically can’t anymore. Until the tears dry up and the sobs stop because his throat is too raw. But still, Dante’s hand never stops rubbing circles into his spine. Never once begrudges him for staying on his lap and wetting his clothes with snot and tears.

After several moments of silence on both their parts, Nero pulls back. “I can’t stop. I need it too much.”

Dante looks sadder than Nero has ever seen him. One of his hands reaches up to his face but hesitates. His hand stops centimeters from Nero’s face, so Nero bridges the gap, leans into the touch. There’s the barest glint of surprise and… something else in Dante’s eyes as he does, “I’ll help you. You come to me when you have a craving. I’ll help you.”

Nero’s first instinct is to get angry. To blow up and ask how the hell Dante could do anything to help. How he could possibly understand the _need_ he feels. But this man has done everything for him. Given him a home where he isn’t an outcast, provided him with work that does _good_. Been a friend.

So, instead, he nods. They spend several long moments just looking at one another, Dante holding Nero’s face and Nero sitting in Nero’s lap. Then, suddenly, Nero backs away. Pulls himself off of Dante and seats himself on the couch with a bit of distance between them.

Dante looks shocked.

But he doesn’t say anything. He just recovers and looks over at Nero with an odd look. Nero stares back for a moment before his eyes flick to the picture frame now laying upside down off to the side. “What’s the picture of?”

Dante looks back at it, then, gingerly, picks the frame back up. “C’mere, I’ll show you.” Nero leans back toward Dante for a moment, then gives in and scoots up next to him.

The picture is a little blurry. Specifically, one of the little boys in it is blurry. The older man in the picture looks like he’s trying to get him back in a position ready for the photo to be taken. The only person not blurry is another young boy who looks very perturbed at being forced to sit through the shenanigans. And finally, the last person in the picture is recognisable. Not only because she looks strikingly like Trish, but because he’s seen her face day after day in that photograph Dante keeps on his desk. This is Dante’s family.

Nero’s assumption is that Dante is the young boy that is little more than a blur. Which means that the other one, the one clear, must be his brother. Vergil.

They look like their father. At least, what Nero can see of him, due to his chasing after Dante, he is also blurry. And it’s such a candid moment. Nero can see the joy in all of them. Even Vergil, who looks like he’d rather be doing just about anything else. He’s still happy. They all are.

“You all look so happy.”

Dante makes a small noise sort of like a chuckle, “Yeah. I suppose we were, back then. This was a long time ago. Vergil and I were probably… seven or so in this. I never could sit still long enough for a good photo.”

Nero smiles. He hardly notices that Dante managed to get his arm around him, along the back of the couch. Not until his hand comes down to pull him a little closer. When he does register the contact, he flinches, but relaxes almost immediately. He finds he quite likes the comfort of the arms of the other hunter. He’s warm and safe.

“Nero, I…” Dante’s voice barely cuts through the fog of half sleep Nero finds himself giving into.

“Hmm?” he mumbles back in confusion. His head rolls back to look at Dante and he realises he’s started falling asleep on the elder’s shoulder. “Mmm, sorry,” he mutters.

“Shh, it’s…” Dante’s voice trails off some, “Nero, I have- I need to tell you something.”

Nero pulls back for real this time, wipes at his eyes to try to wake up a bit more, “Shoot.”

Dante’s fingers run along Nero’s shoulder gently, feather light. “I, uh. I care about you a lot, Nero.”

Nero’s brows furrow, “You said that already.”

“No, that’s not- Err…” Dante looks like he’s having serious trouble working out what he’s trying to say and Nero is growing more and more confused. And a little concerned. “What I’m trying to say is… I _really_ care about you. Like- like the way Trish and Lady care about each other.”

Silence.

Nero is stunned.

His mouth moves, but words don’t come out. He doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t _believe_ it. “I don’t- I don’t know what to say…”

It’s the one of the saddest smiles Nero’s ever seen, “You don’t have to say anything. I just wanted you to know.”

Nero is lost in his whirling thoughts when Dante pulls his hand back, his arm back, and goes to stand. He’s still whirling in his head as Dante puts his frame in his desk drawer and starts walking up the stairs. His footsteps are fading by the time Nero gets himself together.

He runs. Runs after Dante and catches him in the hall on the second floor. He doesn’t have the words to explain himself, never been too good with them. Much more a man of action. Which is why he grabs Dante’s shoulder to pull him around, and pushes him against the wall. Maybe a bit too forcefully. But he doesn’t stop. He puts both hands on Dante’s shoulders and leans in with all his inexperience.

And kisses him.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/playingchello).


End file.
